The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for visually confirming and verifying the presence of human tissue or blood in a specimen collection bottle by a surgeon. More specifically, the method employs a chromogenic test pad inserted into the undersurface of a lid of a clear specimen bottle and together the pad and lid is used as a visual indices tool which may be visualized through a clear tissue specimen bottle to confirm to the surgeon the placement of tissue in the bottle.
It is common practice for physicians and surgeons after removing human tissue from the body to place such tissue in a specimen collection bottle containing fixative to enable processing of such tissue so that a pathologist may render a diagnosis of such tissue. During the rush of surgery or rapid pace outpatient and inpatient biopsies the surgeon may forget to place the tissue into the specimen bottle, unknowingly lose the specimen, or small specimens are accidentally disposed of after they are thought to have been placed into a specimen bottle. Further, the physician or surgical team may not carefully examine the specimen bottle to ensure and confirm that his staff had placed the specimen in the tissue collection bottle or the submitted specimen is so small it may be difficult to visualize its presence in the bottle. As a result, the pathology labs, not infrequently, receive a specimen bottle with no tissue inside.
Prior Art, is focused entirely on testing stool for the presence of occult blood and many methods including U.S. Pat. No. 4,725,553, U.S. Pat. No. 2,838,377, U.S. Pat. No. 3,996,006, U.S. Pat. No. 4,175,923 describe various methods of a test to detect occult blood in stool using guaiac paper or guaiac substitutes and or various activating substances. However, none of the prior art, deals with employing guaiac paper or substitute guaiac paper as a novel apparatus contained within the lid of pathology specimen collection bottles and more specifically employed to detect and confirm the presence of human tissue or blood within a pathology specimen bottle.
Accordingly, an apparatus and methodology which overcomes the shortcomings of prior common practice is desired such that surgeon or surgical team can quickly examine a tissue bottle to verify and confirm that human tissue or blood was placed in the bottle. It is the broad object of this invention to reduce the likelihood of lost tissue specimens, misplaced human tissue, or blood samples and avoid a physician or surgeon accidentally submitting empty tissue specimen bottles by creating a visual verification system utilizing the lid of a specimen bottle to serve as an indicator for surgeons in order for surgical staff to quickly visualize the inside of the specimen bottle to confirm presence of human tissue in bottle by noting a color change in the undersurface of the lid by looking through the bottom of a clear specimen bottle.